


Head Games - Hide and Go Seek

by Alexdoesthings



Series: One shot before canon [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Compartmentalizing, Gen, Manipulation, Mind Games, Running Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 22:45:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1243348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexdoesthings/pseuds/Alexdoesthings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Nogitsune is in control now and Stiles is in the hell that's become his own head. But Stiles has never been good at staying focused on one thing and no one has ever been able to follow his many, varied, overlapping trains of thought. Not even dark spirits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Head Games - Hide and Go Seek

Stiles was not pleased to say that the Nogitsune had a creative imagination and a wicked streak of sadism a mile long. He was tortured, abused, destroyed over and over. Every second of it felt like years so he sat in a swirling vortex of agony that quickly became his whole world. He couldn’t have let it just kill Malia, that wasn’t an option, but sometimes he almost wished he had. This was the worst form of hell Stiles could have imagined and he had a pretty colorful imagination himself.

There’s this thing the brain does about horror and agony though, it won’t let you suffer forever, it adapts. When things stay bad, it makes that the new normal so it’s easier to deal with. That’s what Stiles started to do, compartmentalizing, pushing everything into boxes and putting them away.

It wasn’t easy. The Nogitsune was in his head, in all his thoughts, and when it caught on to Stiles he had to change the boxes or destroy them and start again. It didn’t go away, the agony, he knew that, but it made things easier.

The first time he found himself away he was in a hedge maze. He could feel it stretching all around him with all its dead ends and false trails. There was a grey mist that almost obscured the dark green walls around him. It wasn’t pleasant, he was lost and alone, but he wasn’t hurting, wasn’t dying, at least for the moment. He knew it wouldn’t last forever, but the maze was huge and he wasn’t the only one who was lost. He could feel it; the Nogitsune was reaching for him like a creature with many tentacles, a darkness sweeping over to suck him up again. It didn’t like that it had lost him, even for these few seconds. That wasn’t something it could allow, it meant there was a flaw in its control, and flaws were dangerous.

It snatched him up again and he was wreathed in pain once more.

After that he started to get away more. It didn’t happen for long stretches of time and Stiles assumed that it might only be happening when the spirit looked away from him. It was a wonderful respite though and he’d take what he could get. He wouldn’t say it kept him sane, he wasn’t sure he’d been that for a long time, but it let him keep his head when he might have otherwise just given up.

With time, he got better at it, fighting for another second and, sometimes, earning it. It got easier and soon he learned to leave a part of himself with the Nogitsune and keep something of himself out of its grip completely. When the fox first found that little part of himself he’d hidden away it was only a toddler in a tiny toy box. He’d laughed as he smashed the box apart and strung that little guy up on a wall with the wood from the box nailed slowly through his flesh.

Stiles had though that might break him but he heard someone calling his name, his Dad maybe, screaming it so loud that it reached Stiles even down here. He kept trying after that. He figured out pretty quick that he couldn’t keep it in a box, it was too easy to find.  Instead, he used that part of himself that had always been such a problem, made him such an annoyance and a social reject, his attention deficit. He let himself jump and run wherever whenever his head went somewhere.

“How are you doing that,” the Nogitsune roared, ceasing it’s attack for a moment.

They sat across from each other on the floor of the quiet room in the mental hospital with its white walls and diffused light. Stiles laughed and there seemed to be five of him or that he jumped with each quick echo to a different part of the room. He seemed blurred with how much he was moving even though he was sitting there smiling broadly at the Nogitsune. It wore his face and glared at him.

“I haven’t been this focused in a long time,” Stiles said with a wide, mocking smile at the irony, “I have to thank you for that.”

“How did you do this,” it demanded coldly.

“I haven’t taken my meds in a while and I know this place is about as real as spray cheese,” Stiles said, and there seemed to be a blurred whirlwind at the words.

He could feel the Nogitsune’s power reaching for him, testing. He jumped ahead of it, being as unpredictable and quick as he could possibly be.

“How do you know this isn't real,” the Nogitsune asked neutral, trying to throw unexpected attacks at him.

They were suddenly in his room and he was standing in front of a mirror that reflected himself back the Nogitsune wearing his face. Stiles could feel it trying to put doubt in him and moved faster, becoming barely recognizable in his blurring speed. He was easiest to see at his center in front of the mirror where he stood to mock the creature in front of him but even that wasn't stable.

“If you hold out your hands,” Stiles said casually, “I’ll show you.”

It put up both of the hands palm out to show Stiles its fingers. Stiles mimicked the motion and slowed his hands just long enough to show that there were a perfect ten of them. The Nogitsune smirked wickedly to itself.

“Ten fingers means you’re not dreaming,” it pointed out, as though it had already won.

Stiles shook his head and said, “No, I have too many fingers.”

He shattered the mirror over the Nogitsune’s hands and jumped as far away as he could. The malevolent spirit roared at his insolence and chased him with all the intensity it possessed. Stiles only barely kept himself ahead of it, giving in only where he knew he could survive it.

It wasn't a permanent solution, but it was better than dying.


End file.
